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Blackmon: 'Parent trigger' is wrong approach to education reform

published Saturday, March 16, 2013

Recently, I asked a Florida middle school principal, “What are three things that could make it easier for you to be a highly effective principal?”

The first thing he said was “more and better parental involvement.”

His school is a demographic microcosm of those that serve the poor in this country. It has a special section where newcomers, many of whom are refugees, spend up to two years getting up to speed in English and other content areas. Unlike non-English-speakers who enter in the early grades and quickly pick up the language, students who come in middle school not only have to learn English, but must be able to understand more complex content as well.

In this principal’s school, more than 70 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. There is no majority ethnic group. Those parents who are able to find work are generally employed in low-wage or blue-collar jobs.

The principal explained that many of the parents would like to be more engaged, but are struggling too hard — often working several jobs — to put food on the table. Many of his students have changed schools three or four times a year all their lives.

His school could be a struggling middle school anywhere in the country. And although the Florida legislature narrowly defeated a “parent trigger” law last year, in Georgia, this principal’s school could be a textbook candidate for Georgia’s proposed “parent trigger” law, passed by the House and currently in the Senate Committee on Education and Youth. But schools like this are unlikely to ever benefit from such legislation, and there are a number of reasons why a “parent trigger,” giving parents the opportunity to call for reorganization of their children’s school, won’t really solve anything.

First, we know that students whose parents are engaged in their education — supervising homework, volunteering at school, attending PTA meetings and school events, providing books and educational activities at home — are the ones who are most likely to succeed in school. These students are generally rocking along just fine, making high scores on the standardized tests and other evaluations, even when their schools may show poor scores overall.

On the other hand, students whose parents cannot — or will not — be engaged in their education, tend not to have educational activities at home. Students often are responsible for younger siblings, leaving them little time to focus on their own schoolwork. They are generally not as successful in school as their peers who are not economically disadvantaged.

The reasons for this could fill a book — their parents may be working more than one part-time job, for example, and not be in the home regularly — and the research confirms it over and over.

The differences often are even more pronounced in the eighth grade. In 2011, 4 percent of economically disadvantaged eighth-graders failed to meet reading standards, and only 20 percent exceeded them. In the “not economically disadvantaged” subgroup, 2 percent failed to meet standards, while 68 percent exceeded them.

So, given what we know, which parents are more likely to organize for a charter conversion or school reorganization? It is highly unlikely that the parents of the poorly scoring students will do this. But given overall school test results, some of the parents who are involved in their children’s education may see a “failing school” and push for an alternative.

The poorer parents are much less likely to become involved in “trigger” efforts. They may not have email, or they may have to work and not be able to attend meetings to discuss the effort. But the other parents may well get the numbers to be able to move the school to a reorganization, in which all administrators and teachers are fired and have to reapply for their jobs.

After all the tumult settles, and there is a new principal, new teachers and staff members are in place, and school gets back to normal, will the poor kids start to score better on tests? Perhaps a little, but it isn’t likely. Will the students whose families support and encourage education do better on their tests? Probably not much.

I have read that 60 percent of a student’s success in school is determined by factors outside the school, such as economics, neighborhoods, family status, health care and stress factors. Only 40 percent of their success is determined by what they get in school. Changing the school is not likely to change their educational outcomes.

I just can’t see where a parent trigger will do anything but generate discord and instability and waste money that could be used on actual education, only to create “transformed” schools that continue to get the same results. The evidence from other states supports my conclusion.

So why on earth is our legislature so determined to follow this silly fad?

• Myra Blackmon, a local Banner-Herald columnist, works as a freelance writer, consultant and instructional designer.